Murphy’s soap is for oiled floors only

Q. We are going to have our wood floors (kitchen and dining area) screened and refinished by a professional. Sad to say we have cleaned the floors with Murphy’s Oil Soap which now we discover was the wrong thing to do. Before this work can be done, we need to clean the floor well with denatured alcohol changing out cleaning cloths frequently. Do you have any other suggestions for removing the residue left by this cleaning agent? Thanks so much.

A. Murphy’s Oil Soap can only be used on wood floors that have been oiled. Since your floors are slated for screening and refinishing, they were originally finished with a polyurethane.

Sorry, but there is no other way to remove the Murphy’s Oil Soap, which has penetrated every available pore in the wood left open in spite of the polyurethane finish, and the joints between the boards. The oil must be removed to be able to screen and refinish the floors. Once this is done, Bona is the maintenance product to use.